


I can talk with flowers

by AzcaSky



Category: Monsta X (Band), VIXX
Genre: Albeit Loosely, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Symbolism, a liiiiiitttle changki if you squint, a little bit songfic, allusion to canon, very light angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 15:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19153708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzcaSky/pseuds/AzcaSky
Summary: Dreams don't always matter. But sometimes they do.It's not all good, but it can be pretty.





	I can talk with flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired from Leo (VIXX) ft Maximilian Hecker - the flower and BTS - Dream Glow.  
> And also a little bit of Monsta X - Newton and Oneus - Twilight.  
> I suggest listening to those songs while reading!

It's a dream.

Changkyun is sure of it, at least, even when this lucidity is new, or even if it isn't, he couldn't remember. He remembers, though, that human can have lucid dream a few times in their life. To a certain extent, lucid dreamers create their dream, usually with things that they are familiar with in real life. Because apparently the details of that world would have been stored inside the brain. At least that was what he got from Inception. He isn't sure, though, how _his_ real world corresponds to anything he's seeing right now.

Before him lies an entrance to a forest. The sun is shining, the sky is bright blue, and everything else is green. There's no heat nor cold, or even if there is, he couldn't feel it--nor the texture of the ground he stand upon. He can only see. Even the sound sounds strange, muted, as if the forest is trying to talk to him through whispers. But the sound is far. Too far.

 

_(Whispers across the corridor, muffled behind thin hotel walls, between countless rooms of nameless doors. No, no, he shouldn't have to think about this right now.)_

 

Changkyun steps inside,

and the forest is luminous with sunshine, like shadow forgets to exist. Around him, leaves reflect the most brilliant green and the every branch is the lushest brown. He's not an expert, but even him can tell that this forest is nothing short of unnatural. If this is _his_ dream, what would he possibly want by creating a forest that glows?

He walks further, seeking the source of the sound. The trees glint along with each move he makes, welcoming him to what lies ahead. They have voice but they are silent, as if holding back, because their voice isn't the one that they want him to hear.

The whisper isn't from the forest. And they're trying to tell him that; with the silence, with the glow, with plants that doesn't have shadows.

It feels like hours, but it also feels like minutes, years, seconds. Like forever in a moment. Time is a tricky thing in a dream, and in this forest, it is even trickier. The sun still shines, yellow that doesn't look like yellow. A color without the warmth.

 

 _(_ It's just for a while, Changkyun, _but it feels like hours, like days, like years, because what's the sense in waiting if you don't even know whether the thing you're hoping will come?_

_"But that's why it's called hope, isn't it?"_

_Changkyun wishes he never believes it.)_

 

The clearing that he finally arrives at is a field of grass and bushes and flowers. Flowers of overwhelmingly various color and shape and kind. Each of them glimmers with the sunlight, and the wind is louder, here, the wind that is heard but not felt.

Changkyun can hear the whisper, but it is still far. Not too far, just a little bit more.

He looks down as he walks, and he sees beads of dew clinging to grasses and leaves. Water that does not make him wet, even when he steps with his bare feet. ( _I'm bare feet?_ ) Twigs tickle his feet and soft pollens and petals brush his cheek, but he still feel none of it.

Rather than lucid dream, it feels more like those visual reality games, where things can be seen and some heard, but not felt, not smelt, not tasted.

He steps and steps and steps, from yellow and pink to orange and red until finally purple and white.

Then, there, sitting in between grasses and flowers, is a man as soft as dandelion, as pretty as daisies, as graceful as violets. (Changkyun doesn't know flowers, but he's surrounded with dandelions and daisies and violets, and yet the man is still the most beautiful.) Crown of woven lilies and marigold rests atop his pale yellow (blonde, it's blonde when it's in person, Changkyun remembers but doesn't register) hair. He has his slender hand outstretched towards nearby flower, and the other hand holding a makeshift bouquet. He's picking flowers, flowers that blend to his white blouse and dark blue pants, that gives patterns to his otherwise plain pale color. He takes life but he doesn't look cruel. He's a beauty taking another beauty, simply forming it from one shape to another.

The man looks towards Changkyun (a moment that feels like eternity) and smiles. With his smiles, the flowers bloom for him, glowing a little brighter.

"Hello," he says, soft as whisper, but Changkyun hears because this is the voice the forest leads him to. They are all quiet so his voice can be heard.

Changkyun sits in front of him, like it's the most natural thing to do, and maybe it is, he just doesn't realize.

Up close, the man looks even more ethereal. The world glows with the sun that never sets, but he glows even brighter.

(It feels to Changkyun as if the should be fragrant as well, with all the flowers around him, or even more. Or maybe less, or somewhere in between. To him, this man is the smell of sweet pea and faint rosemary.)

"Are you the one that created this world?" Because there's no way this forest comes from him, dreaming or not. It feels tranquil-- a little bit too tranquil, even—like everything doesn't exist. Changkyun doesn't remember, but he knows the real world isn't half as peaceful.

 

_("Where are you going?"_

_"Not far."_ Don't look for me, don't follow me. _"I'll be back before dinner."_

_The eyes looking at him doesn't look convinced, but the voice doesn't push, never push. He's gentle even when he's distressed, and Changkyun feels sick for having to lie once again._

_"Okay.")_

 

"Do you think so?" The man hands him stems of daffodils, his hand brushing Changkyun's ever so slightly. (It's soft soft _soft_ but Changkyun can't _feel_.)

"Who are you?"

When he answers, he does it in whisper, a whisper that reverberates, amplified by the flowers and the wind. "I am a petal, to which love is the flower."

("Is this a riddle?"

"Only when you don't know the answer.")

"What's your name?" Changkyun asks instead. It feels important, somehow, even though it doesn't feel like it matters. _What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet._ The daffodils are white and yellow, and it doesn't make sense how his smile never leaves.

"A single petal doesn't have a name," Changkyun is ready to protest, because this is _important_ , even though he doesn't know why. But he continues, holding a laugh as if there's a joke that he doesn't share. "But I am also called Leo."

Leo. _Taekwoon_.

 

_(Daniel. His name is Daniel. Im Daniel._

_But he's also Changkyun, Im Changkyun._

_Born in Boston, lives in South Korea._

_Im Changkyun, Im Daniel.)_

 

"Taekwoon." In his tongue, the name feels like dandelion, fluttering away in swirls, dancing with the wind.

He chuckles, delighted, like Changkyun has finally understood an answer he has been holding all along, "Yeah, Taekwoon."

"I am Changkyun."

 

_("It doesn't matter what name you go by," the Director tells him, cold cold cold cold. "As long as it sticks, and sells."_

_"I am..." Doubt. Fear. Hope. Longing. Despair. Anger. Resolve. Changkyun. Daniel. A name that is also a name._

_The Director raises his eyebrows, waiting, skeptical but expectant, cold cold cold cold._

_"_ I am what I am _.")_

 

"Hello, Daniel."

It is ridiculous, they speak in a language they both don't understand, but they follow every word, like flowers doesn't need language, like wind doesn't need language. Taekwoon's words are warm, comforting in a way that he can feel, even in dream where everything isn't sensed.

His warmth is that of a welcoming hug, a smile in the end of the day, a reassurance in the middle of a hardship.

 

_("Hang in there, kid.")_

 

"Why is there no shadow in this world?"

"I am but a mere petal." Taekwoon spreads his fingers to the ground, softly, like the soil is going to make Changkyun understand. (Maybe it is.) "You're the creator of this world. Do you wish to have shadow?"

 _Does he?_ No, he doesn't. "No."

(Changkyun realizes he has black in him, and he might be the only shadow in this world. Maybe he already has enough shadow for a world.)

Taekwoon smiles again, "Then it's alright, Changkyun."

They pick more flowers, adding life to life, taking one from the other. They do it for hours, for moments, for days and for years. Like eternity in a moment, like flower that blooms from the petal that falls.

In this world, the sun doesn't set, and the time doesn't exist.

 

_(Sleep. Sing. Rap. Practice. Interview. Dance. Practice. More rap and more practice. Less and less sleep._

_Changkyun wants to breathe.)_

 

There's a tug on his sleeve, suddenly, and he feels invisible thread pulling him back to the forest.

He has to, he _has to_ come back, but if he comes back, there will no longer be flower field beyond luminous forest. No more man that looks like dandelion swept by the wind. Changkyun is scared of losing,

but there's never anything to lose, not in this world, in the dream that glows.

"Can I st-stay?"

Taekwoon holds his hand, a sensation that Changkyun _almost_ feels but still doesn't.

"Flowers wilt," he picks the one on his hand, and just as fast, it turns brownish to the touch, "Just like all life will."

("Why fear, if there is nothing to fear?"

"I always fear, because I am but just a weakling."

"You are the strongest in the world.")

Taekwoon places flower of dark purple, a single stem of flower, with all its five petals. "Bring this with you."

"What is this?"

"Brunfelsia. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. It will change, but it's all pretty." Taekwoon encloses his hands to Changkyun's. _We hold hand a lot, today_. "It fell, but it will still change, and it will still be pretty."

Changkyun doesn't understand. He wants to stay. Wants to keep picking flowers and look at the beautiful cornucopia of life in the glow of the sun.

"Go, Changkyun. It's time."

 

_("It is time."_

_The cheer reverberates through metal frame and LED. The shout of exhilaration, of passion, and of love._

_"Let's go.")_

 

-

 

 

When he wakes, the first thing he does is check his hand. To his disappointment, there's nothing in it. He looks all over his bed—below the pillow, all over the sheet, under the bed—but still no flower. He looks over his clothes and phone and cables, between his laptop and game console and sheet mask wrapping he forgot to dump.

Nothing.

So he does the next best thing; he unplugs his phone and types into search engine: brunfelsia.

It actually is called Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, and that might be the most ridiculous and unnecessarily long name that he ever know for a flower. But it says that it changes color based on the hour of the sun, and he remembers the word of the man as soft as dandelion, but he doesn't remember anything else.

_It will change, but it's all pretty._

He is trying to recall the color of the flower he got when his phone rings. A call from Kihyun.

" _Are you awake yet? Get ready, we're having breakfast together._ "

"Yeah, hyung, wait a minute." Changkyun drawls, distracted, wanting to go back to the page he was reading about flower that changes color.

" _Do you need help packing? I bet you haven't started. We leave at 5._ "

"No, I'm okay." He answers truthfully, a little touched but also a little annoyed. It's a weird feeling. He sorta misses the time when they would room together in pair. Kihyun was always trying to discreetly pack his things hours before leaving. He appreciates the privacy that they have now, but some aspects are just hard to replace. "Hey, hyung."

" _Yeah?_ "

"Do you know brunfelsia?" He doesn't know why he asks. He doesn't even know what kind of answer from Kihyun he would want. It's not important, but it feels like it matters, somehow.

" _Yeah, my aunt used to plant it._ "

"If you give it to someone, what color would it be?"

Kihyun stops a bit ( _five seconds_ , exact, not hours or minutes or even eternity) before answering, " _It's poisonous, you know._ "

Changkyun doesn't know, actually, he hasn't managed to read that part, but he hums anyway. Non-committal, or else Kihyun would worry.

" _Well, probably purple. Since it's the most vibrant, and also the time when it's still freshly bloomed._ "

"So you will give brunfelsia in the morning?"

Kihyun chuckles, and despite not being able to see (in this world he senses all, but sometimes he still doesn't see), he knows the singer is shaking his head. " _Go wash up, Changkyun, I'll meet you at breakfast._ "

Changkyun is the one who ends the call, and he immediately read the still open page about brunfelsia.

It is indeed poisonous.

There is no meaning listed for brunfelsia in the language of flower, but Changkyun somehow thinks that there's more than that. There's something he forgets, and he might never get it back.

_It will change, but it's all pretty._

 

There are bouquets of flowers on their breakfast buffet table, courtesy of the hotel staff, to better welcome them to this country they visited for the first time. Among the roses and lilies and lavenders, there's a bouquet of brunfelsia, in pale cream paper with yellow ribbon. There's no card attached, no message, no brand. Changkyun only notices because he spent the good half of the morning looking at pictures of brunfelsia online.

"Excuse me," Changkyun stops a hotel staff who was refilling the orange juice, "May I know who sent this one?"

"The hotel provides for all the bouquet, Sir-" He inspects the bouquet in question, and, "Oh-"

Not from the hotel, then.

"We're sorry, Sir, we don't know what happened, but if it bothers you, we will remove it immediately."

"No-no. Just let it be. It's pretty."

"But, Sir, the flower is-"

"Poisonous, I know. I won't be touching it. Put on a don't touch sign? But leave it there, please?"

"As you wish, Sir."

 

The bouquet is full of vivacious purple flower.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, the Newton reference is from Changkyun's shirt that says "I can talk with flower". It doesn't mean anything, but it's pretty, so yeah.


End file.
